By the numbers – infectious syphilis rates

Inspired by a comparison of rates for infectious syphilis for Canada and for Alberta, your humble e-scribbler took a gawk at the tables from the Public Health Agency of Canada that the Globe staff used to make their tables.

Alberta’s rate per 100,000 of population in 2009 was 7.3 compared to 5.0 for Canada.

The Newfoundland and Labrador rate was 0.6 per 100,000 and that hardly looks like anything at all.

But take a look at the rates for males and you see something dramatically different.

From 1999 to 2007, the male rate was typically 0.0, as in nil, nada and zippo.  In 2003, it hit zero point three, in 2005 it was zero point eight and in 2007 the rate hit zero point four.

But…

In 2008, the rate for syphilis infection among males in Newfoundland and Labrador hit 2.4 per 100,000.  It was 1.2 per 100K in 2009.

The rates for males in Alberta was 7.8 and 9.8,  up from 8.7 and 9.8 the two preceding years.

That’s one phantasmagorical change – even if the absolute numbers are relatively small.  But if you stop and think about it for a second, you can see what might have been going on.  Alberta’s big jump was in 2003 when the rate hit 2.0 up from zero point six.

Migrant labour to and from Alberta likely caused the rate to jump in Newfoundland and Labrador.

And there’s no way of knowing for sure how many of those Alberta syph cases actually belong to people who list their residence for income tax purposes as being in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Syphilis can be a nasty disease.  In the days before penicillin, people died from it, most often because the disease progressed to a deadly stage before people realised what they’d contracted.

Odds are good, though, that people with a sore or two aren’t avoiding their doctors these days.  Syph is readily treatable. If people get it, they need a trip to the doctor and a few pills. Modern medicine coupled with drug insurance plans and Medicare mean that no one has to suffer along in quiet.

And if the doctors get the cases, then they are required by provincial laws to report the diseases to their provincial public health officers.

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When bullshit fails…

try more bullshit.

Well, that’s apparently the latest tactic the Bloc NDP are trying to deploy in an effort to distract attention from the fact that Jack Layton’s handpicked successor was a card-carrying member of the separatist Bloc Quebecois until January when she left the party to run for the NDP.

I didn’t inhale, Turmel says, of separatism, contending she is and always has been a federalist.

No one outside the troubled Bloc NDP bought that line.

So now they tried another one:  Turmel will cut all ties to separatists.  As the Globe quotes:

“I am a federalist,” the rookie MP and Interim Leader of the Official Opposition said in an interview. “I want to reassure people about my allegiance to the NDP, my allegiance to Canadians, and reassure them that we are getting ready for the fall sitting of Parliament to work on their behalf.”

Turmel, who has been an NDP member since 1991; also claims that she joined the Bloc in 2006 because she liked their anti-scab agenda.  She didn’t support separatism, she says.

At this point you can see this story is not going to get any better.

At worst, Turmel is a liar.

But at best, you have to believe that the woman who ran the Public Service Alliance of Canada, has been active politically for more than a couple of decades and who now leads the Bloc NDP was so politically stupid – naive isn’t strong enough a word – that she felt she had to join the Bloc in 2006 because she liked one of their policies.

Beggars the old imagination, doesn’t it?

This is the latest variation in the story of Turmel and her membership in a separatist party. The fact that it is the latest variation in the story should be a clue that what you are getting from the Bloc NDP and its leader is bullshit.

A simple story requires only one variation:  the truth.  When politicians start adding all these sorts of rationalizations or childish claims, they just make their own problem worse.  if nothing else, this sort of stuff smacks of political arrogance:  Turmel and her handlers apparently feel they can bullshit Canadians and that voters will just accept whatever codswallop they spit out.

Time will tell if that’s true.

It hasn’t been a very successful political strategy for others.

And given that the Bloc NDP has more than a few sovereignists in its caucus  - apparently - and an agenda that sovereignists like, odds are it won’t work in this case either.

The fractures are there. 

Once Jack departs the leadership, as it seems he inevitably will, don’t expect the paper Nycole and her supporters have slapped on them to hold for very long.

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Why drug store owners - and some politicians - will lose

Shills might like you to believe that their party is on the side of the angels by backing some drug store owners in the province, but  all they are doing is showing how little they know about the drug store business and consumers in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Drug store owners will lose in the battle over generic drug pricing.

Late last week, the provincial health department issued a news release that gave the simple reason.  Follow the money and you will find the trail leads you to consumers, including the major private sector drug plan providers. As the release put it:

The policy will result in lower priced generic prescription medication for out-of-pocket payers, those receiving private insurance and beneficiaries of the provincial drug programs, creating savings that will be reinvested into the health care system.

The reason is a simple one:  under provincial law, the price for generic drugs in this province is not just the price paid by the provincial government’s drug plan for senior citizens and those on income assistance.

Everyone will pay the cheap rate.

It’s been like that since the provincial government allowed the sale of generic prescription drugs in the province almost 40 years ago.

The government release is long-winded and hard to understand but the point is in there. Here’s a bit of extra backstory

Historically, the Ontario government set the best price simply because its drug program is the largest in the country.  A Quebec policy of accepting only the lowest cost anywhere ensured that every provincial government wound up paying the Ontario rate.

The provincial government release talks about generics costing 75% less than brand name drugs.  In some instances, the cost to consumers has been less than 60% of what the brand name drug costs.  Consider as well that many of the brand name manufacturers sell their original, brand name drug through generic drug companies.  What you are paying for at a discount price is actually the original pill.

But to get back to pricing, remember that what they are talking about, though, is the retail price to consumers, often called the formulary price. 

While that may have been fixed at 75% or 60% of the brand name price, competition in the market allowed drug companies to lower the actual cost to drug stores through a variety of discounts and other payments.  The end result for drug stores was a mark-up on generic drugs that rivals anything they sell in their front store.

Starting in 2010, and faced with skyrocketing health care costs, some provincial governments started eyeing the real wholesale cost drug stores were paying and not the notional prices set under the old policy. The savings for the people paying the bills could reach into the tens of millions annually.

Ontario started the wave.  But backlash there has been muted, largely because the pricing scheme only covered the provincial government’s clients.

In Newfoundland and Labrador, though, a change to formulary pricing will benefit anyone who pays for generic drugs.

And for that reason alone, the provincial government will likely stick to its guns in an election year.

They will win.

You don’t even have to consider that the drug store owners’ argument about lay-offs and loss of rural pharmacies is bullshite. 

And Lorraine and Yvonne and anyone else shilling for them will look like dorks in the process as they wade into the battle and attack the government. 

After all, how can you claim to be standing up for consumers when you are siding with what most people are likely to see as just another aspect of the profit-rich, international pharmaceutical industry?

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BlocHead - Dipper Watch

Bloc NDP leader Nycole Turmel is supposed to be in St. John’s on Wednesday for the annual regatta.

Local Dippers will be out in force.  As local president Dale Kirby tweeted on Tuesday:

Will be at Royal St. John's Regatta tomorrow with Interim #NDP leader Nycole Turmel, @lorrainemichael, our MPs, & #NLNDPcandidates #nlpoli

Members of parliament will include Ryan Cleary.  Mainland readers of these e-scribbles and those following the Bloc NDP leader will find that an interesting photo op.

Maybe Cleary can offer his new leader some tips on how to answer questions about supporting separatism.

Or maybe the pair have more in common than either of them care to admit.

Anyway, they both have some explaining to do.

And if that doesn’t work, ask Turmel and local party leader Lorraine Michael to discuss the merits of a loan guarantee for Muskrat Falls.

Michael supports the plan to double the public debt and saddle local taxpayers with skyrocketing electricity prices.

Michael just doesn’t seem to want to answer any questions about why she thinks that’s a good idea, though

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No thought, please. We’re Danny.

In the summer doldrums, odd things poke through to grab your attention.

Like this piece in the Calgary Herald about a speech Danny Williams gave back in June.  Williams said the federal government spends "too much (time) worrying about how one thing will affect another, how will Quebec react or how will this impact a certain block of votes.

Take that as a gigantic clue to Williams’ thinking.

Or, more precisely, his lack of thinking.

Danny Williams’ success usually comes from a blitz attack aimed at forcing a decision before his opponents had a chance to think.

Williams’ style fits with the media tendency these days to focus on the superficial, flashy and the trivial.  In the rush to ratings, the flash of a controversy is always much more important than the consequences.

If it bleeds, it leads and when Danny is on the case odds are good he or someone else will be bleeding.

Williams’ low-thought approach also fits with a world in which most people don’t think about politics very much. 

Five minutes?

That’s it.

And within five minutes, Williams could be chasing off after another will o’ the wisp.

But for as many successes as Williams may have produced, he also churned up some rather spectacular failures.

Like Hydro-Quebec.  He spent five years trying desperately, secretly trying to sell a chunk of the Lower Churchill to Hydro-Quebec.  At the same time, he was publicly kicking the crap out of them.  Even as Williams called a rare emergency session of the legislature to try and unshag something he and his legal beagles shagged up during talks on developing the Lower Churchill, he laced into the untrustworthy crowd in Quebec.

Collapse of Hebron talks in 2006?  A sudden outburst on Williams’ part as the provincial government and the companies sat a mere 5% apart.  It wound up costing the public royalties and local benefits to get a deal in the end.

But for all that, his…shall we say… mercurial style sure delivers great copy.

Like this Telly front pager and all the media coverage that has followed it.

Compare coverage of his hockey team with any serious political story of the past couple of months.

 

 

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Debt, electricity rates and Muskrat Falls #nlvotes

The editorial board at the Telegram understands the point exactly.

It’s a point your humble e-scribbler has been harping on for six years to one extent or another.

And it’s one of many major problems with Muskrat Falls and the plan to double electricity rates in the province:

The implications are hideous. As the editorial asks:

Ask a simpler question: if power rates double or even rise by 50 per cent, would you be able to afford it?

It’s a frightening question.

Public debt is one thing.  The province is in hard shape and it is even harder given that the province’s finance minister likes to talk about the debt load but then plans to double it with the flick of a pen. Your humble e-scribbler started a series of posts in 2008.  You’ll find other references to public spending going back to 2006.

Personal debt is another.  That’s getting worse in the province as well.

And if the province needs power, there are cheaper, greener alternatives that the provincial government is ignoring. Even natural gas would be better than Muskrat.

This could become the most significant issue of the campaign, not because Muskrat is a good issue for the people backing it, but because the parties backing it most strenuously – Conservatives and New Democrats – may find a strong public backlash.

For the Liberals, this should be a warning to Yvonne Jones that Muskrat is the wrong horse to back no matter what some people are whispering in her ear.

For the Tories and New Democrats, this could become a major wedge issue, shattering their existing support and  - for the NDP - making it harder to attract new converts.  For the Tories, the Muskrat mess could make it harder to get their voters out to the polls.

For the Dippers it could be a classic wedge.  How many NDP supporters are adamantly opposed to Muskrat and mistakenly believe that Lorraine Michael and Dale Kirby oppose it, too? 

You can tell the NDP are touchy about the issue because neither the party president nor the party leader is talking openly and proudly about their commitment to bringing about exactly the financial mess the Telegram is warning about.

Well, if Muskrat turns out to be political and economic bad news, it is not like people didn’t warn y’all.

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Dunderdale tops in senior management churn

Kathy Dunderdale has the distinction of making more changes to the public service than any of her predecessors as Premier in the past 15 years.

Since taking office in December, Dunderdale has made 15 announcements of a changes in the senior ranks of the provincial public service.

In 2010, Danny Williams made a total of nine announcements. and from 2003 to the middle of 2009, he made a total of 37.

By comparison, Liberal Premiers made a total of 24 announcements over the course of eight years.

And while most of the appointment announcements since 1996 have involved one or two positions per announcements, since 2009, the provincial Tories have been making more changes at one time and more changes overall.

In 2009, Danny Williams made five announcements of changes to the senior ranks of the public service, but those five announcements involved 28 positions.

In 2010, he made nine announcements affecting 28 positions.

And in the first seven months of 2011, Kathy Dunderdale has made 15 announcements affecting 19 positions.

While there is no definitive link between frequent changes at the deputy minister level and poor organizational performance at the federal level, it is interesting that the two are correlated in the current Conservative administration. In his report on the 2009 fiscal year, the province’s auditor general noted that monthly financial statements of government’s budget performance were no longer widely circulated.

One study by the consulting firm Deloitte, however, noted that with frequent changes at the assistant deputy minister level, follow-up on problems discovered during an audit can simply get pushed aside. That study showed departmental audit committees could help maintain continuity despite high turn-over at the senior management level.

At the federal level the executive group – deputy ministers, assistant deputies, executive directors, etc – has been the group experiencing the highest rate of change.

While senior appointments are made by cabinet, they remain the prerogative of the premier to chose.

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Compare and contrast: election policy edition

Compare the New Democrat “policy” announcements on the fishery and shipbuilding, slipped out there last week with the Liberal one on health care and seniors, announced on Monday morning at a news conference.

The Liberal one wasn’t available online as of 1330 hours local time on Monday.  That’s not encouraging, given the announcement happened at 1000 hrs.

The Libs will need to sort this out to make sure their information is readily available.  Online media coverage of this announcement sucked.  Most didn’t have a story and the one that did appear covered only a small portion of a much larger announcement.

But this is not just a case of announcing a vague intention.  The Liberals announcement includes:

• a ministry of aging and seniors,
• an aging and seniors strategy that will also feature health and wellness promotion, respecting and celebrating seniors, supportive communities,  seniors’ financial security, employment and life transitioning,  secure housing options, and, caregiver assistance and support.
• a seniors’ advocate, similar to the child and youth advocate,
• a funding shift to rehab and other support to enable seniors to stay in their own communities longer, and
• better funding for long-term care and home care.

How this announcement plays with the public remains to be seen.  Just recall that health care is the single biggest issue for voters according to polls.  And don’t forget that seniors and seniors’ care is already a sensitive political issue. it will only get bigger in the years ahead.

From the sliding a sheet of paper department, a lot of this will look familiar to people who have been paying attention to any sort of policy announcements over the past decade.

That’s because many Conservative policies after 2003 just continued work that was already done or already in train under the Liberals.

From the superficial reporting department, consider that any media coverage of how many candidates the parties have nominated at this point is pretty much a pile of irrelevant bullshite. 

Update II:  Here’s the policy document in a version you can read and enjoy.

Caring for Our Seniors

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Update:  CBC has an online story that went live after this post first went up.  It is pretty vague on details despite the fact the Liberal announcement had tons of specifics.

What’s more interesting to see in the CBC comments section are the number of NDP astroturf (fake identities, likely all done by one or a small number of people) comments that criticise the announcement or claim – falsely  - that the ideas are NDP ones. 

You can expect a lot more of that sort of foolishness, especially if the NDP can’t come up with solid policy announcements of their own.

The July 2011 Traffic

Top 10 posts for July 2011, as decided by Bond Papers readers:

1. Trade talks with Europeans = “doing back-room deal with a bunch of serial rapists”
2. Forecasting the fall
3. Skinner makes false statement in letter to Telegram
4. Free tuition at NL university for Nova Scotians:  NL NDP leader
5. Politicians and illness
6. Cross Sheila off your list
7. All three NL parties back Muskrat Falls project
8. Makes it official, then
9. I knew Marilyn Monroe
10. Definitely cabinet material

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Sliding a sheet of paper, NDP version

The New Democrats announced a couple of policy planks last week for the general election campaign.

Well,  sort of announced.  The party’s news release says that leader Lorraine Michael announced something but part of it sure doesn’t look like much of a clear, verifiable commitment:

“Government should have done more to ensure that this province would play a role in the federal government shipbuilding plans.”

In contrast, the NDP leader said, an NDP government will help its province’s own shipyards secure contracts with outside buyers, …

So what does that mean exactly?

Good question.

What Michael is talking about in that first sentence is the decision by a private sector company to withdraw from a federal government tender competition. She doesn’t explain what more the provincial government was supposed to do nor does she give any idea of what some mythical New Democrat government of the future might do to change the situation she doesn’t really describe in the first place.

We just get the comment that the provincial government should have done “more” and that a New Democrat government will “help”.

In the second part of the shipbuilding “policy”, Michael said that the New Democrats would “commit to building Newfoundland and Labrador ferries within the province.”  Of course that is actually nothing new:  the current Conservative administration committed to the same thing in 2003.  While it took them four or five years to sort it out, they have managed to build a couple of ferries at shipyards inside the province.

Now while the release said Michael talked about two policies, there’s no way to be sure if the two policies were about shipbuilding or if this counts as the second plank:

“The provincial government has to work with all the players – industry, the municipalities, the workers – to ensure that the fishery can diversify and thrive,…”

That’s not really a policy so much as a general statement. Unfortunately for voters, it doesn’t actually mean anything. One might wonder, for example, how a municipality could help top restore fish stocks since there isn’t a town in the country that has any responsibility for any part of the fishery.

Maybe Michael meant something else.

Maybe she did not know what she means.

Voters will likely have a hard time knowing what Michael and the New Democrats mean either.

But readers of these e-scribbles will know what it means:

Of course, that’s pretty much consistent with political parties that aren’t interested in drawing in new supporters based on a platform aimed at voter interests.  As your humble e-scribbler noted for NTV, you are going to have a hard time sliding a sheet of paper between the parties on major issues. The one thing they will all have in common is a commitment to spend gobs of public cash:  pork is the priority. Likewise, for all parties – but especially the current incumbent Tories, it will be yet more  paternalism.

Local political parties all practice a form of defensive politics that involves a combination of preaching to the people they already have while repeating whatever it is the other guys have been doing that worked before.

Expect more of the same.

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The Summer of Love 2011

Five years after your humble e-scribbler first wrote about it, the world pretty much accepts the notion that the governing Conservatives time their communications to coincide with polling done by their contract pollster. A couple of university professors have taken up the task of documenting the extent of the poll goosing and talk radio stacking activities.

Well, labradore posted a couple of reminders last week about just exactly how intense this can get.

First, he show a chart comparing the number of releases issued in the middle of summer.  Not surprisingly, 2011 showed the heaviest news release output on record.  That’s not surprising because it is an election year and the the incumbent Tories apparently are having some problems with popular support.

Second, labradore charted the number of media advisories issued by the provincial government, by month from 1996 onward. No one ever said this poll goosing thing was something the Tories invented.  It’s just that they do it more aggressively than the gang that went before.

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Triumph of the Brand Will

From one of the most successful political brands of modern times comes the secret of branding.

Forget what you learned in school.

Brand is not about qualities, values or indeed even anything real or tangible.

The secret for us now is the same with any marketing brand — whether it's Apple or Nike with the swoosh — having a brand and having a logo, it's about what you wrap around it, it's about what you make people believe it is and what it stands for,

“It’s about what you make people believe it is…”

Brand is an act of will.

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The Traffic: 25–29 July 2011

1. Turd buffing
2. Politicians and illness
3. Nalcor ignores natural gas, local studies back cheaper alternative to Muskrat Falls
4. An endorsement that rings a little hollow
5. Follow the money
6. Paternalism in pictures
7. Nutbar Factor 6 and The Politics of Perpetual Panic
8. Where isn’t the democracy in that?
9. Plastic, packaged and preaching to the choir
10. The Politics of Public Spending

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Politicians and illness

A day or so after Jack Layton told the country about his latest health crisis, CBC Radio’s noon-time show opened their phone lines so people could call in to talk about Jack Layton and his struggle with cancer.

Regular host Ramona Dearing chatted with Nancy Riche.  They were respectful and serious, as one might expect.  Some people called in to say nice about nice things about Jack.

And then after about five or six calls something very odd happened.

Well, actually didn’t happen.

No one called in to attack Ramona and the Ceeb for daring to discuss Layton’s personal business.  No one insulted and abused people for calling in to wish Jack a speedy recovery.

And that lack of abuse quickly spread to other media.

That is worth noting for a couple reasons. 

First of all, it puts paid to the excuse offered by long-standing apologists for the narcissist who used to be the Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador that the shitstorm of anti-media commentary in the wake of Danny’s heart surgery was just a spontaneous outpouring of disdain for reporters who had gone just a bit too far.  It was a very focused and pretty obviously organized bit of political theatre by a crowd known for their amateur dramatics.

Second of all, what Layton did and what happened afterward are what we have come to expect in this country of politicians.  We expect them to be frank and disclose illnesses that could affect their work.  Layton really didn’t have much choice in this case.  His cancer seems to be serious enough that the treatment will take him off the job for weeks.  The telling bit is that while might have successfully hidden his prostate cancer, Layton chose not to do so.  That is the key part:  he did the right thing.

We, the voters, showed that we can do the right thing, as well and act in a mature and responsible way.  Ultimately, we can lay aside partisanship in order to show some common decency and a touch of humanity.

Not everyone can do that, of course.  Just this past week, an articulate and thoughtful woman decided to try her hand at politics.  Pam Pardy Ghent announced she wants the Liberal nomination in Bellevue district.

Since coming back to Newfoundland and Labrador with her family, Pam’s been a reporter and a commentator. *

She also took a provincial government appointment to a board. That one ended rather sadly when she made a Facebook comment that the narcissist’s coterie decided was a bit much.

Pam would be a fine candidate regardless of what party she opted to run for. But there are still a few admirers of the Old Narcissist who just couldn’t resist reminding us of how much the province has matured since last December.*  They ran her down to the dirt online – anonymously, of course – mentioning only the one pathetic episode that came after her facetious comment bout the narcissist’s wedding tackle.

Incidentally, have a bit of fun and read one of the more popular posts from 2010 on how the Old Narcissist might finally leave office.  it is one thing that your humble e-scribbler raised the issue at all.  It is another that some people took issue with it.  One commenter of the anonymous variety – he uses a fake name - insisted Hisself would sail in triumph through an easy victory in October 2011.  Another who uses his own name and who is a fine fellow, couldn’t believe the Old Man would use Muskrat Falls as his legacy. 

But to get back to the state of the world these days, note the fact that the childish anonymous comments don’t happen as often as they used to.  Once upon a time, not so very long ago, you could hardly read anything political without Hisself’s legion of anonymous arseholes – there is no polite word for them  - spewing their bile everywhere.

Not so any more.

And that is a very good sign that the political disease that once gripped this province is fading fast. Regardless of which party comes out on top in the fall, we will hopefully see some healthy political maturity.

So to Pam, good luck in the fall election.

And to Jack, fight hard knowing that you are in the thoughts and prayers of millions of Canadians.

There is always a reason for hope.

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* edit for sentence structure and readability

Where isn’t the democracy in that?

Robert Doyle spoke to reporters recently on behalf of some independent drug store owners in the province.
Doyle complained about a change to regulations for the provincial government’s prescription drug program that required a drug store owner to give 120 days notice before withdrawing from the program. CBC quoted Doyle:

Robert Doyle, spokesperson of the Independent Pharmacy Owners association, said the move seems a little heavy-handed.
"Pharmacies could have to go to court and if found guilty, up to a $2,000 fine and six months in jail. So he's looking at putting a criminal offence against pharmacy owners," Doyle said.
…
Where’s the democracy?

Where indeed.

There is nothing in any provincial law that forces drug stores to accept payment from the provincial prescription drug plan. Under section 16, a drug store can ask for a provider number and get one.

The drug stores had to decide to accept payment from the plan in the first place.

But that’s not all.

Under the regulations approved on July 25, drug stores can legally withdraw from the program without any penalty. All they have to do is give 120 days written notice, post a sign in the drug store and send out letters to any patients they’ve served within the past 12 months.  That might sound like a bit of work but given that the drug stores should have contact information on file, it isn't half as hard as it looks.

If they do all that then – on Day 121 -  they aren’t accepting direct payment any more.

Period.

But not exactly.

Under subsection 4 of the regulations, the minister can “waive or shorten” the notice period. Any drug store owner who is seriously pissed off enough that he or she doesn’t want to accept direct payment from the provincial drug program can easily write and ask the minister for the period to be shortened or suspended entirely.

In other words, anyone who wants out can get out today, right now, no waiting.

None of them will ask for a waiver.

None of them will issue the 120 day notice now required.

That’s because this dispute isn’t about democracy any more than it is about rural versus urban this or that.

It’s about money.

Everything else is nonsense.

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Follow the money

Anyone who wants to understand the current racket between the provincial government and some drug store owners need only follow the money.

It is the local version of something that started in Ontario in 2010. CBC has a decent background note that explains the issue.

And if you want to understand why the pharmacy owners caved in so quickly and abandoned their threat to stop accepting direct payment from the provincial government drug program?

Well, see if you can find out how much of their drug sales come from the provincial government’s drug programs for seniors and low income Newfoundlanders and Labradorians.

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Turd Buffing

Russell Wangersky’s column on Tuesday discussed some of Nalcor’s efforts to deal with criticism of the Muskrat Falls project. He notes the company letters to the editor and interviews efforts are respectful and low key but…

The problem is, the letter-writers keep coming at the issue from different directions, barbarians storming the Nalcor castle from the front and back, above and beneath, and that leaves the Nalcor responses — “Muskrat Falls is the best of the two major options we considered” — looking stilted and formulaic.

Not only that, but as in many bureaucracies, it takes a while for Nalcor to respond. 

When it answers a letter-writer five days after the letter appeared in the paper, that’s a major rear-guard action. 

It’s not helped by the fact that the responses are seamless but remarkably similar — a variety of people write or respond on Nalcor’s behalf, and magically, they all sound exactly the same. 

The mantra’s getting stale. 

It’s not always on point, either.

That pretty much sums it up.

If Nalcor is having a problem with its public communications – and they are – the problem isn’t with the people in the corporate communications shop.  The public relations gang at Nalcor are among the most professional bunch you will find anywhere.  Your humble e-scribbler has known some of them for years and has gotten to know the others by firing off e-mails to ask questions about a bunch of different Nalcor projects. They know their stuff.
The problem is higher up the corporate food chain.

Take, for example, the idea that Muskrat Falls will double the price of electricity in the province. Your humble e-scribbler reached that conclusion early on by taking what then-natural resources minister Kathy Dunderdale said in an interview and doing a bit of simple math.

Her replacement called VOCM’s Open Line show on Tuesday to deny that, among other things. Shawn Skinner said simply that it wasn’t true.

And that was it.

He didn’t point to a brochure mailed out to every household.  Skinner didn’t point everyone to a website, nor did he say that anyone can find the rights of it somewhere else.

He just said that it wasn’t true.

Yep and the cheque’s in the mail, I’ll respect you in the morning, we never expropriated the Abitibi mill and I’m from Ottawa and I am here to help.

Take as another example the idea that Muskrat Falls is the lowest cost way of getting the electricity Nalcor says we will need within five years.  Never mind that the demand forecasts don’t say what they claim they say or that five years comes before Muskrat would come on the grid.

Nope.

Let's just look at the lowest cost claim.  Kathy Dunderdale, Shawn Skinner, Ed Martin and Nalcor veep Gil Bennett all say the same thing.  They are on message.

But they don’t produce a single shred of evidence to back the claim.

They either didn’t look for the lowest cost option  or they don't have the information [they claim they have];  that is, the information [they have] contradicts their claims.

Those are the only two reasons for not releasing even the teensiest shred of evidence to support two essential bits of the Muskrat Falls story.  They are the essential bits, just to be clear, because they affect consumers directly and they are key bits of Nalcor’s rationale for building the project:  it’s the cheapest and it will help keep your electricity prices down.

The technical term in the public relations community for a project like Muskrat Falls is turd.

As in you cannot buff a turd.  No matter what you do the thing will still be dull, ugly and smelly.

If you want to know why this thing is being rammed ahead at full speed despite the lack of convincing evidence to support building the enormous debt load on taxpayers, just consider what Fortis chief executive Stan Marshall said about projects involving government:

“Governments … their agenda can be very, very  different than a private enterprise.”

Muskrat Falls is not about providing low cost electricity to Newfoundlanders.  It isn’t about having electricity to sell at a profit to mainlanders. Nor is it about thumbing our collective nose at Quebec.  And it certainly is not about replacing the thermal generating plant at Holyrood.

Muskrat Falls is the crassest of crass, cynical political ploys. 

Danny Williams desperately needed  to leave politics saying that he had succeeded where everyone else had failed.

Williams spent five years desperately, secretly, trying to get Hydro-Quebec to take an ownership stake in the project.

No matter what he offered, they didn’t want it.

He flipped his lid.

He tried Emera.

They thought the price was too steep. They didn’t trust him.

So Williams sweetened the pot:  Newfoundlanders would carry the full cost, plus a guaranteed profit no matter what.  Nova Scotia would get electricity at a big discount plus Emera could get a piece of the transmission pie inside Newfoundland.

Emera couldn’t refuse.

Williams left.

His chosen successor took over.  Williams’ legacy now became the Tory bid for re-election.  Tons of pork to spread around now and maybe in one more election. Think of it as a giant pile of dog crap turd in a paper bag on Confederation Building’s front steps and set to burst into flames a decade from now, by the time people stomped out the flames, Dunderdale and her crowd would be long pensioned off to Florida.

You can’t buff a turd, but if you stick to the message track you can force other people scrape it off their shoes long after you are gone.

- srbp -

Paternalism in Pictures

People are talking about fire trucks, paving and other forms of patronage doled out by the provincial Conservatives for Election 2011.

The always acidic labradore has it in pictures, over time.

- srbp -

Plastic, packaged and preaching to the choir

While some people may be excited about the fact that all three party leaders in the province are on Da Twitter, a close look at how political parties in newfoundland and Labrador are using, or not using social media, shows that there is a lot less here than meets the eye.

NTV aired two stories last week about social media and the upcoming provincial election.  Your humble e-scribbler is in both, along with local blogger and former candidate Stephen Eli Harris.  The first piece – here – started from the news that Kathy Dunderdale is the first Premier to use Twitter. The second one – here – built off the fact that the provincial government’s energy corporation is also using Twitter as part of its campaign to gain support for its Muskrat Falls megadebt project.

Do a quick Internet search and you will find plenty of commentary and analysis on the Obama campaign and social media.  Some of the more interesting assessments compare how the republican and Democrat campaigns in 2008 differed.  The Republicans preached to the choir.  That is they used social media as a way of speaking to people who were already committed Republicans or who were leaning heavily that way.

The Democrats used social media as a way of tapping into a large pool of swing voters, alienated voters and independents. The used social media to draw potential voters to core materials and give them plenty of options to take action in support of the campaign.

Both strategies are built around the basic point that social media offer some pretty potent ways to reach voters who are now tuned in a great many places besides television, radio and the local newspaper.

In the upcoming provincial election, you will see that the Conservatives have a heavy Twitter presence. The New Democrats are using it and some Liberals have discovered that it exists.

The more important thing to notice is the content.  The Conservatives tend to spout their talking points or spit out meaningless pap about getting a haircut. The New Democrats tend to retweet campaign news from the party president or leader.  In short, they are packaged, plastic and preaching to the choir. 

One exception that stands out: Jerome Kennedy, with this tweet:

"the harmonies of new floods", "the thunder of insentient seas", "eternal pathways of fire"- E.J. Pratt's "Newfoundland". Required reading.

The dunderdale2011.ca website doesn’t have any sign of an effort to attract supporters, engage them and turn them into activists.  Sure, there’s a “Get Involved” button but it takes you to some sterile text:

There are many ways you can get involved in our Party.

In the lead-up to the general election campaign in October 2011, you may choose to volunteer with your local district association in support of your Progressive Conservative candidate.

You may wish to serve with Young Progressive Conservatives, the Progressive Conservative Women’s Caucus or the provincial campaign.

If you wish to get involved as a volunteer, please contact our Party office:  blah blah blah

This is not about pulling people in and turning them into activists.  This is a website about pushing information out, most likely to people who are already converts.  And if you think about it in light of the leadership controversy earlier this year,  that’s basically the way the party runs.

Ditto for  the NDP website.  For starters it’s just a sub-page from the national NDP site.  The buttons that look like ways to get involved are just e-mail forms to fill out so somebody can contact you later.  The Twitter button takes you to the leader’s feed.  As this is written on Monday evening, the last update was 24 hours earlier.

They’ve got a map of where they have candidates for the election.  That’s right above a list of nominated candidates:  14 as of July 25. The individual candidate web pages are pretty bare.  There’s not much there beyond some basic biographical information.

Ditto ditto the Liberal website.  it hasn’t been updated in a couple of months.  if you click the “where we stand” button you will find the party constitution.  No sign of a platform or policies. The news page is up-to-date with releases as recently as Monday. 

That’s the one clue on this website that there’s an election on.  There is a link to something called candidate nominations but it is a pdf of candidate profiles and pictures.  It’s out of date, to boot.

Of course, that’s pretty much consistent with political parties that aren’t interested in drawing in new supporters based on a platform aimed at voter interests.  As your humble e-scribbler noted for NTV, you are going to have a hard time sliding a sheet of paper between the parties on major issues. The one thing they will all have in common is a commitment to spend gobs of public cash:  pork is the priority. Likewise, for all parties – but especially the current incumbent Tories, it will be yet more  paternalism.

Local political parties all practice a form of defensive politics that involves a combination of preaching to the people they already have while repeating whatever it is the other guys have been doing that worked before.  The more aggressive forms of the defence – like the Tories in 2007 – also use heavy doses of Republican-style attack politics to suppress the opponents.  It can work spectacularly well.

Well, sort of.  The 2007 Tories won a landslide of seats but they actually didn’t get any more votes.  What they managed to do was demoralise the Liberals whose lacklustre campaign couldn’t draw anyone out.  The Liberal vote collapsed and that made it easy for the Tories to pick up seats.

But the Tories actually got fewer votes in 2007 than they did in 2003.

That isn’t what you may think if you only listened to the superficial media reports that did nothing more than repeat the intensive hype coming from the Tory camp.

The current Tory strategy is essentially a pledge for more of the same. For the campaign, that seems to mean yet more of the same but without the small-minded, vicious personal attacks that were Danny Williams’ stock in trade.

Other than that, there’s nothing really new in their campaign at all. Social media could let voters see real people and let that personality energise the campaign. Instead, they get some cross between Max Headroom and Johnny Cab.

Don’t be surprised if the parties have to struggle to get their voters to the polls.  The Tories are almost certain to face that problem. The other two parties don’t stand much of a chance at pulling new voters to their cause and they too will work to get the same people to the polls again.  Some individual campaigns might stand out but at the provincial level, the campaigns are pretty much brain dead.

And growth isn’t really what they are doing even if, as with the New Democrats, they are claiming that miracles are about to happen.  Consider that for all the hype, the Dippers only have 14 candidates in place.  That’s roughly the same number as the Liberals. None of them has a name or a profile outside of their own community or in some cases outside their own household.

For parties trying to take down an incumbent government, social media should be the tool of choice. What’s so interesting about the current election campaign and social media is that neither political party in the province is doing anything but using the new, revolutionary tools, to spit out more of the same old anti-revolutionary crap.

At this point, that’s the story of social media and the 2011 election.

-srbp -

An endorsement that rings a little hollow

It is always funny listening to Cynthia Downy endorsing anyone for political office.  Not so long ago she was running for Stephen Harper and saying all the things about Stephen Harper she now says about Kathy Dunderdale.